Jane Espenson: Buffy, Harmony and...Anderson Cooper?

By Matt Brady January 9, 2009 02:21pm ET

Preview: Buffy, The Vampire Slayer #21

Preview: Buffy, The Vampire Slayer #21

Harmony and her "perky pair"

This week’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer #21 (preview here) saw two returns: the
return of Harmony to the “Season Eight” Buffyverse, as well as the
return of writer Jane Espenson, one of the original writers on the Buffy television series (not to mention Producer on Battlestar Galactica and writer on Joss Whedon’s new series Dollhouse). But them together, and what did you get? Harmony Bites - an MTV reality series about the self-obsessed vampire. Well, at least a story about Harmony landing a reality series on MTV.

Although, that’s selling the issue a little short – gently, there was a huge
change in the issue for the entire series and world that the Slayers
live in. We spoke with Espenson about the issue, her goals with
Harmony’s story, a new Slayer, and…Anderson Cooper?

Yeah – Anderson Cooper.

Newsarama: Jane, we’ve spoken with Joss a couple of times about
the comic series, and he described these single-issue story issues set
prior for the coming big arc as a chance for him to bring in his
friends to write stories about the stuff that they like. Is that how it
worked out with you?

Jane Espenson: Well, I was given the choice of what I wanted to
write – either a longer arc, or something more limited, and I had other
things going on, and find comic book writing very hard – very
challenging and very time consuming, so I asked for a one-shot. But the
story was very much picked for me by Joss, but picked with an awareness
of what I like to write – it’s exactly what I would’ve requested.
Harmony gets a reality show? Holy crap! That’s for me.

So it’s hard to remember that I didn’t pick that story, because it’s so exactly what I would have picked.

NRAMA: You’ve worked with Harmony before, during your time on Buffy, right?

JE: Yes. Harmony was featured a lot in an episode I wrote called
“Harsh Light of Day,” where we revealed that Harmony was Spike’s new
girlfriend - so yeah, I’ve gotten to write her before, and she’s a
favorite of mine.

NRAMA: What’s the appeal of the character for you? Obviously –
putting her into a reality show fits perfectly – she’s that type of
character that you tend to see on MTV’s reality series, but what’s the
appeal to you as a creator to play with her?

JE: Extreme characters are fun, and they’re always fun to write,
and Harmony was always an extreme character. As portrayed by Mercedes [McNab],
she had this wonderful and unexpected poignancy where you feel for her
instinctively, and you realize that a lot what you first perceived as
arrogance from her is sheltering some insecurity, and she becomes more
and more interesting. So I already saw that in her, and then, the idea
of a character who gets their validation from public opinion – that’s
wonderful, hilarious, sad…it’s got all those great layers of emotion
just built all into it right from the very beginning.

I consciously picked that first image of her trying to get into a
nightclub – it’s a goal that’s hard to praise. It’s hard to praise
someone who’s desperate wish in that moment is to get into a nightclub.
But – it’s also a desperate wish. As much as it’s not the highest
calling possible, you start out with a character that wants something –
that wants to fit into that Hollywood world, and is a hard enough
worker and good enough thinker that she finds a way in. That interests
me. It’s like a quest – it’s a modest quest, but quests are always
interesting. It’s actually more interesting if it’s a goal that’s a
little harder to identify. We’re seeing someone strive to reach what
they want, which is always interesting, and the fact that we don’t
agree with what they want works against that in a really neat way.

NRAMA: When you said that you only had the time to commit to one
issue, and Joss then had the story for you, how did that come across?
Was it more of a throwback to your shared TV days, where the ideas came
top-down-ish?

JE: It was a little like the TV show in that you were often
assigned a story that way: “this week you’re writing the next one, and
it’s about this.” That was often how the shows were assigned,
but the shows was broken as a group, with Joss leading it. So often,
every important beat in the story came from Joss’ brain and was
dictated specifically, which is what gave that show that beautiful
uniformity of vision.

But the comics – I was given a lot more individual freedom. I was told:
Harmony has a reality show, the point of this issue is that we see
public opinion about Slayers and demons turn. It’s the start of a turn
where humanity no longer sees Slayers as necessarily the good guys and
vampires as the bad guys. That’s pretty much what I was given, and I
was very much given the freedom to come up with all the details to come
up with the details of Harmony’s life, her show, how it would all lay
out – very much on my own. I think if I had done stuff Joss didn’t
like, he would have stepped in and given more explicit notes, but he
really never did – this was very much out of my head, other than the
main concept, and I’m really, really proud of it because of that. There
are a lot of choices in there that I got to make on my own that I think
turned out well.

NRAMA: Was the new Slayer in the issue your creation as well?

JE: Yes – the idea of picking a specific Slayer and her background, that was form me.

NRAMA: I thought it was interesting to see in the story that you
were “selling” the idea that the Slayers weren’t necessarily the good
guys, because from the new Slayer’s point of view, this group wanted to
control her in much the same way her former gang did…

JE: Yeah – I like when both sides have a valid case. It’s always
struck me that the point of slaying is to even the balance between the
dark and the light – it’s not to wipe out the darkness. So you already
– given that, you have justification for some ambivalence about the
role of the Slayers. Then if you start going into “how dark is the
darkness?” – I was happy to bring back Clem, because he was a demon
that we met before, and we know that he’s not evil, although you could
probably make a case that the eating kittens thing is a little bit
evil. Maybe that’s all he digests though…but how evil is evil? Does it
mean that you’re evil if you just genetically happen to be a demon?
That’s never been established as true – there are demons who are not so
evil. And this organization that’s taken it upon themselves to decide
what’s best for humanity…

You can see how a case could be made that the Slayer organization is
shady and shadowy and suspect, and could easily be up to no good. And I
like that – it’s not that humanity’s being duped. There are arguments
to be had.

NRAMA: There are arguments to be had, but at the same time, and
I’m guessing that this came from you in the story as well, that you did
get a couple of pointed commentaries about the media in there, about
how, on issues such as this, the media can manipulate us, and raise
questions when there may not be any, ultimately. Especially, you showed
Anderson Cooper leading the questioning charge against the Slayers…I’m
not sure if he’s going to be as big a fan of yours anymore…

JE: Well, I don’t have any reason to think that Anderson Cooper is currently a fan of mine…[laughs]

NRAMA: Hey, he has watched Living Lohan…

JE: Yeah – he is a fan of reality TV, so I would like to think
that someone might point this issue out to him. [laughs] I think he
might enjoy Harmony Bites, but I have no reason to think that he’s a fan of my shows, but who knows…many people are.

But I actually picked Anderson Cooper because he is believable. He is
credible, and if you hear Anderson Coooper saying, “What is this
shadowy organization?” it’s not Rush Limbaugh saying it. Anderson
Cooper is someone we tend to think of as credible and reasonable. So I
picked him as a sign of reasonability, not of gullibility. I want us to
say, “Oh, smart people are saying, ‘What’s up with these Slayers?’” So
Anderson, you can take it as a compliment.

NRAMA: Given that you work with Joss a lot, and have to get set
up on this comic – in your view, how big was this issue in terms of the
larger storyline? It did have the feel of one of those old Buffy
episodes where everything you know was turned on its ear, and now, the
good guys are wearing the black hats and the bad guys are wearing the
white hats…

JE: Yeah – well, the second part to the story of how I told Joss
how I only wanted to write a one-issue story was that he called me
later on and asked me to write this five issue Oz arc and I agreed to
do that, and have turned in the first of the five issues. So I do know
where things are going, primarily because I ended up getting more
involved in it than I had intended to, and I’m really glad I did.

So I know what’s coming up, and I know how big this development will
turn out to be in the scheme of things. Yes, it was pivotal, and I like
how, as you said, it’s deceptively pivotal. It plays like it’s not a
big deal, and then you realize, “Oh wait – that’s kind of huge. That’s
all of humanity starting to shift around and say, ‘Wait – who have we
been rooting for?’” I really like that it was not
done with a big thunderclap, but the way life really turns – one day,
say a given President has a really high approval ratings, and then, you
hit critical mass and public opinion almost overnight, turns, and the
world changes. It happens so subtly and quickly, and you tend not to
take it seriously, but all of a sudden, you notice that the world has
turned.

NRAMA: The story does leave you with the feeling, after you close the issue of “Wait a minute…what just happened here?”

JE: I’m so glad you think it played that way. That was totally
what I wanted – I wanted the feel of, “It’s fun and games, it’s fun and
games…wait a minute…”

NRAMA: Finally – you said that you’re writing the Oz arc coming
up, but still, you’re involved with so many comic book-able properties,
with your time at Battlestar Galactica and now back with Joss at Dollhouse…beyond this Buffy arc have you thought about doing more? Perhaps in Dollhouse and explore some new directions?

JE: I’m very busy with all of the other stuff, but if Joss decides that there are comic books to be done in the Dollhouse
world, sign me up. The experience of writing the Harmony comic followed
up by the first of the Oz ones that I’ve done has really own me over to
comic books in a way that my earlier experience didn’t. I’m finally
gaining a little bit of confidence in the medium. It’s so hard to do,
and it’s so much like directing, and I always thought that it didn’t
play to my strengths – that I’m much more about eh words and the
dialogue. Comic books – boy, I love ‘em, but it’s hard to get a lot of
dialogue in there. You just don’t have that much room - literally.

I always felt very hindered by that, and I’m finally feeling like I’m
getting the rhythm of that and an instinct of how much fits on a page,
and I’m trying to figure out how to fit physical humor on to the page,
which I was always really hesitant to do – I was always unsure what
could be captured in a drawing and what couldn’t. A simple gesture that
you know would be comedic say - it’s a gesture…you start to think
that’s not something that would be captured in the “snapshot” of a
panel…or would it? I’m starting to feel a lot more like I know what I’m
doing, so I would jump into any comic book project that Joss wanted me
to tackle, I’m there. I hope I get to do more comics – I’m having fun
with it in a way that I haven’t before.